Dabbling in crafts

Tag Archives: Cell theory

This card was made a year ago. Or a year and a half ago. I really liked this card so I wanted to make a good post about it. Perhaps sell the background digitally. Oh well, i let the dream of a webshop go, as it doesn’t fit my other ideals of less waste and less controbution to waste and posession in this world. I am kind of tired of things revolving around selling things people don’t need, just to make profit to grow bigger and to sell more… I do not want to empower that even more (I know I do by buying things, but hey, I’m trying hard on other areas in my life to be living a sustainable, ecofriendly life!)

Anyway, this wasn’t about the card. Or perhaps it was? In my mind the card was named Journey, as the little dots were making a journey across the card. Like microorganisms travelling. Oh this picture really doesn’t do it justice.

The background was made with the paint and kitchen foil technique, as mentioned here. It didn’t need much more, i didn’t want to cover this background a lot so I just made little dots with perlen pens and marbled those a bit.

The card needed a frame, but not an ordinatry one. It should fit with the journey/stone like feeling. So this was the start:

Distress ink pumice stone and forest moss through the cell theory stencil of TCW. Then with the marker spritzing / airbrush tool from ranger add the specks to the stones while the mask is still laying down.

I’m not sure anymore what I did here, but I know it involved clear embossing one layer. Eventually all layers were clear embossed but I can’t remember in which order.

Which way is up?

Below: After clear embossing the layers, add more distress ink.

See how the center lights up? I loved this stoney effect of the border! Like an opening in a strange cave you look into. Or out of.

I tried this again on another piece of paper.

Also made a a frame with modeling paste. Looked better on the other ” frame” card then on the turqoise and violet/purple card.

So as often is the case, I made a less attention attracting border with distress ink and sponges and distress markers and the airbrush tool.

Oh the card looks so.. different on the pictures. The dark purple spots look very random (they are), but the focus is on the little microbes and their journey. They change colour while travelling, as they encounter things that change them. Let’s see if I can find a closeup.

That doesn’t help either. It’s just one of those cards you have to see in real life. And maybe to you it’s nothing special, to me it was.

Come to think of it… these pictures are taken 24th of September 2014, my niece was still in a coma after a severe accident in June where she suffered a major headinjury. She had had another major surgery two weeks before (a piece of her skull that had been removed in June because of swellings was placed back, so she was ” whole” again), and I think I was hoping that her cells were regenerating and filling the gaps. New connections being made. Lost connections being restored or regrown. We still didn’t know wether she would a.) wake up. and b.) if she did, would she be a “vegetbale”? How much of her was still there? My youngest son was 3 months old then, and he was growing. His cells were regenerating, dividing, expanding. I hoped hers would too. She did wake up, slowly, and slowly became more conscious of the world around her again. She couldn’t move a thing, could only watch. With extensive training she learned a lot again. Nowadays she’s in an electric wheelchair. The left side of her body still doesn’t function easily, and she hasn’t gotten her speech back yet, but lately she’s making more sound / saying words. We’ve got good hopes that she will speak again without a computer. See here for the Dutch episode of ” Geef om je hersenen” for the Brainfoundation. From 36:00 there is a story about Vanja, it’s almost the same story as my neece her story, only she has rehabilitated more.

A journey. Through memories and emotions. A journey to healing, full of hope.

I hope you didn’t read that as Tyrannousaurs Rex dining chair cover – our son might like dino’s a lot, to implement it onto our dining chairs is a few steps too far. No, it’s just 2 totally unrelated projects. Or maybe a little related – they both aren’t card projects.

RAAAAAAAAAARGH (My son is a fan of imitating T-rex, lions, tigers and dragons. In other words: roaring (is that the word?) on the top if his lungs. Preferrably INDOORS. Ofcourse. What fun is shouting outside where it doesn’t bother anyone, huh?

Nah, ofcourse he does it outside too, but more often it’s inside when he starts to be a bit bored – he chases his sister then, roaring, often having some kind of attribute in his hand (like a toy dino who “makes that noise”). I heard it’s a phase. (The dino thing, not sure about the roaring). I hope so. At least it isn’t pretty pink princesses. I do really hope my daughter doesn’t get into that phase.

Spot the dino!

This picture was made mostly as a reference so I would know where to draw the lines, as I planned to draw them back on. I didn’t, as I thought the painting was good enough as it was.

The T-rex was bought on a fleamarket, with only lines on him but no colour. So I my son and I set out to paint the T-rex. First, we put gesso on it – he was a tremendous help, and painted very clean and precise! (He is 3 now, will be 4 in April). We let it dry.

He likes purple a lot, so I used purple for the main colour. He didn’t help painting this time, I think I made this a few days before my maternity leave would end.

I sprayed some water on it, hoping the paint would react a bit to it, but I think it was too dry allready.

Then I remembered one of my favourite stencils: Cell theory! I have the 6×6 and 12×12 version, ofcourse I used the 12×12 version here. I was very enthousiastic about my idea!

Oooh the first bit… what will it look like?

I loved how it looked. The paints were a different brand paint (Lukas art I think, bought a long time ago at Hornbach, ad DIY hardware store). Various shades of green, a bit darker where there should be shadow, some turqoise on the little dots, light green on light areas…

Tadaa! Done stencilling!Do you see Mater/Takel, the little brown Disney lego toy from the movies Cars? It’s my daughers favourite at the moment. She just loves him, didn’t want to get into her pyjamas this afternoon for her nap, she wanted to sleep in her shirt with Mater on it, but that was dirty and had to go into the laundry. This evening, after bath she was wearing a onesie with a tractor on it / she didn´t want her pyama sweater on because she wanted to see the tractor. (A very fun orange striped Halloween pyama which friends brought with us from London).

I loved the look, also how I managed to follow the lines of the body with it. You can see my box of paints to the left. I was out of white paint a while before this dino, and bought some from the Xenos. That paint smells chemical! The other paints don’t smell like this one. I was also out of black paint, but at that time in the store I decided I wouldn’t buy black, as I would just mix up dark colours again if I needed anything black-like.

Ofcourse, the times when I want to paint something black I hate it that I don’t have it, but ofcourse I want to go ahead with what I’m doing and mix up dark colours, and eventually love the effect and how I didn’t use black. So when I’m ordering something, the process repeats itself. Eventually I will get it, as maybe I want to do some real black lettering. (Hmm do I? The really dark brown/blue I made looked very good too…)

So now the eyes and nose. Oh and the earhole, musn’t forget that.

I was very proud of the result.

I was afraid about my sons reaction just a bit, as he had seen the purple version and had liked it a lot. Did I mention purple is his favourite colour?

The hammer and clothespin are there so you can estimate the size. Still hard to guess I think.

My fears were justified: My son didn’t like the green! I want it purple mamma! Oh the honesty of children. So I primed the other side (gesso but with purple paint allready). And that’s how it is now, didn’t finish that side I realize now. I guess I was still in doubt about painting over the dots, as he had liked it before and not so much now. It is maybe too scary? Maybe I shold tone down just the head, the scales on the head aren’t lining out very well anyway. Or just save it and sell it at a higher price then the euro/2 euro’s the cutout had cost me as it’s much more of a dino now.

Now quickly to the other project.

Oh wait no, that’s quite a few pictures as well. A different post then.

So, what do you think of the dino, paint over the head or leave it as is?

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Hello, welcome to my blog! I am...
Debbie (nickname Daqa); the partner of a wonderful man; mother of 3 kids (2011, 2013, 2014); sister; aunt; Dutch; dog and cat lover; gamer (or should I say geek?); IT-consultant living in Bunde, Zuid-Limburg, The Netherlands. I love to try out different crafts, but mostly, I like to make paper things.

My blog is about crafting, and my life and things I find interesting. (pictures I've taken, events in my life and things or ideas I find worth thinking about). I hope you enjoy reading my blog! Still want to know more about me and my blog? Click the image!

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